The fragment comes from the book “The Diary of a CEO. 33 rules of life and business”. We make it available to our readers thanks to the courtesy of Insignis Publishing House.
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The year is 1980. In America, Ronald Reagan is running for president against Jimmy Carter, who was elected four years earlier. The economy is in desperate shape and Reagan must convince voters that it is time to remove Carter from the White House. In the last week of the election campaign, on October 28, both candidates held their only presidential debate. 80.6 million people sat in front of their TV sets – the then-record number of debate viewers in American history.
Going into the studio, incumbent President Carter had an eight-point lead over his rival, according to polls. Reagan knew that he had to use the tragic economic results to counter him, but instead of doing like all the presidential candidates before him and citing economic data, he did something that no one had ever tried before, and that all subsequent candidates have since done – he asked the voters a simple, the now legendary question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
He said:
Next Tuesday you will all go to vote, stand at the polling stations and decide. I think it would be good for you, when making decisions, to ask yourself whether you are better off than you were four years ago. Is it easier for you to shop than it was four years ago? Is unemployment higher or lower in the country than four years ago? Is America as respected in the world as it used to be? (…) If you answer yes to all these questions, I think the decision on who to vote for will be obvious.
A victory of historic proportions
About six hundred and fifty thousand people participated in a telephone poll conducted by ABC News immediately after the debate. Nearly 70 percent of respondents thought Reagan won the debate. After seven days, on November 4, he defeated Carter by ten percentage points and, in a historic victory, became the fortieth president of the United States.
Just a simple question? No, it’s political magic backed by hard science. Why? Because, unlike statements, questions trigger an active reaction – they force you to think. That’s why, as researchers at Ohio State University found, when the facts are clearly in your favor, asking questions is far more effective than making simple statements.
Question/behavior effect
We all make commitments that we then fail to keep. How many times have you said, “I’m going to eat healthier this year” or “I’m going to exercise every morning this week,” and then nothing happened? Of course we intend to keep our word, but good intentions are not enough to bring about significant change. However, a well-formulated question can do this.
After reviewing over a hundred studies over a forty-year period, a team of researchers from four American universities found that questions are better than statements at influencing the behavior of both yourself and others. Co-author of this analysis, David Sprott of the University of Washington, wrote: “If you ask a question about a future behavior, the likelihood of its occurrence changes.” Questions trigger a different mental response than statements.
This means, for example, that a poster saying “Recycle” is much less likely to encourage people to recycle than one saying: “Will you recycle?”. Telling yourself, “I will eat vegetables every day” is less likely to increase your vegetable intake than asking yourself, “Will I eat vegetables today?”
Simple trick, strong effect
Scientists were surprised to find that turning a statement into a question can influence a person’s behavior for up to half a year. The effect is additionally stronger in the case of questions that can only be answered with “yes” or “no”, and is strongest when the questions encourage behavior consistent with a person’s personal or social ambitions (that is, when an affirmative answer brings us closer to what we would like to be). ).
The use of the word “will” in the question implies decision-making and action, which makes the effect even stronger than words like “can” or “could”, which suggest that the question is more about ability than action. “Will you” is also more effective than “would you be” because the conditional indicates a possibility rather than a high probability.
Using cognitive dissonance to your benefit
In Rule 5, I explained how harmful cognitive dissonance can be, but now I will say that it can also be helpful. Such dissonance manifests itself in the psychological discomfort we experience when who we currently are does not match what we would like to be deep down. Let’s say you aspire to master tai chi and a friend asks you if you practice every day. Answering “no” would create cognitive dissonance because it would reveal an embarrassing discrepancy between your intentions and your actual actions. To remove this jarring sound, you will probably answer “yes”. And when you do, you’ll have a better chance of realizing your aspiration because that question reminded you not only of what you care about, but also of the path to get there, and you’ve expressed your willingness to follow it – all thanks to one innocent but powerful question.
This mechanism works most effectively in the case of yes/no questions, because in such a binary choice there is no room for justifications or excuses that allow us to avoid confronting the truth about our ambitions and what is necessary to achieve them.
If you’ve read my first book, you know that my brilliant assistant, Sophie, announces every week that she’s “going to the gym on Monday.” Whenever I was naive enough to ask how her workout was going, she would give me a detailed explanation of the reasons why she couldn’t go to the gym that day and then say that she would definitely go the following Monday. This has been repeated regularly every week for eight years.
A simple question instead of long explanations
The great advantage of yes/no questions is that they don’t give us room to weave and deceive ourselves. They force us to state the matter clearly. So if you want to stop making excuses for your behavior or admonishing someone else to change their behavior, try this: ask a simple question that can only be answered with “yes” or “no.” This is really effective for things that could use some extra motivation. “Will I go to the gym today?”, “Will I take something healthy for lunch today?” Don’t allow yourself to delve into explanations. It should only be “yes” or “no”.
I recently went for a run near my girlfriend’s house in Porto, Portugal. The city is situated on steep hills, and as I approached what seemed to be an almost vertical slope, the question/behavior effect came to my rescue. I asked myself, “Will you run steadily, without stopping, until you reach the top?” And I answered myself: “yes”. I can’t explain it, but for some reason it really helped me. I ran to the top without stopping. This answer eliminated any excuse I could have come up with to take a break. I made a promise to myself that I didn’t want to break.
Also use this method to help others. Ask a friend or loved one, “Will you eat healthier?” or “Will you fight for this promotion?”. Such gentle confrontation has been repeatedly shown to bring about lasting, significant change and mobilize people to be active.
Use it at work too. If you are a waiter serving a group of satisfied customers in a restaurant, instead of telling them while collecting their plates: “I hope you liked it”, ask them: “How did we do?” when you hand over the bill and the moment comes when they will decide on the tip. As President Reagan showed us, when the facts are clearly in our favor, questions become powerful tools to induce our desired behavior.
Rule: ask, not state – question/behavior effect
If you want to motivate someone to behave positively, don’t make statements, but ask a yes/no question. People are more likely to say “yes” if the behavior brings them closer to who they want to be. And when they say yes, the action has a greater chance of coming true. Ask yourself how you will act and your actions will answer you.
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The Diary of a CEO. 33 rules of life and business
This is not a book about business strategy. Strategy changes like the seasons. This is a book about something much more lasting.
At the heart of every success and failure I’ve encountered – both in my career as an entrepreneur and in the hundreds of interviews I’ve conducted on my podcast, The Diary of a CEO – is a set of principles. They stand the test of time, they apply to any industry and are suitable for use by anyone who wants to create or become something great. These are fundamental principles that help you achieve excellent results.
They are rooted in psychology and behavioral science, draw on the wisdom of tens of thousands of people I have surveyed on every continent and age group, and come from conversations with the most successful people in the world. These principles work now and will work a hundred years from now.
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Steven Bartlett is an award-winning British entrepreneur, investor in over forty companies, speaker, widely read author and internet content creator. At the age of twenty-two, he founded the advertising agency Social Chain, and at the age of twenty-seven he took it public. He is the founder of thirdweb based in San Francisco and the innovative marketing company Flight Story. He was written about in Forbes, Business Insider, Financial Times and the Guardian. He was named one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” (the 30 most influential people under 30) and is the youngest “Dragons’ Den” winner. He has spoken at the United Nations, at the SXSW festival supporting creative individuals, and as part of lectures TEDx and next to Barack
Obama during VTEX Day. His first book, Happy Sexy Millionaire, reached number two on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
The Diary of a CEO. 33 rules of life and business photo: PR promotional material
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
